Alexey Devyanin (Gultskra Artikler, Stud)

Hi! I'm Alyosha, gave up smoking, sometimes I drink vodka and cognac. A composer, artist, talented creative person got into me all together. In fact I’m a real lazybones and loafer:)

- Hi! I think, it will be impossible to avoid banal questions. How did you create the project’s name: Gultskra Artikler?

I’ve been thinking over it for the whole night. I tried to join together several odd words of ancient languages. It doesn’t mean anything, I just like how it sounds. I wanted the title to be unique. Google gave no results for the word ‘gultskra’, nowadays it gives you 25000 links;)

- Tell us about the last albums of Gultskra Artikler. What’s gonna happen to this project in future?

ABTU is a mini-album: only 200 copies, handmade work…We created it with the Miasmah label’s owner Erik Skodvin (aka Deaf Center) when I visited him in Norway, I had a concert there… The album’s cover is unique as each disc has its own picture/inlay inside. One of those pictures on the label’s site, for example a man in a T-shirt or something else. The album is interesting also because of its unique track’s title, the longest title in the whole world! It’s title is a story, told by my friend. As far as I know, one more track of such kind also exists but it’s 100 letters shorter. Joke, of course, nevertheless it’s funny, so you’ll have what to read while listening to the track.;)

The long-playing disc ‘Kasha iz topora’was released in 2007 in Norway, England and all over the world. This album is more important and symbolic for me, it took much energy and zeal. It’s some kind of resume for some creativity period, space of time. For ‘Kasha iz topora’ we made a booklet of 6 pages with a fairy-tale written by the same creative friend. Erik Skodvin worked with the cover, he cut out pieces from the old magazines and books and then scanned them all…

Gradually Gultskra Artikler became outdated, maybe we’ll release one more album but not more. It means, we’ll be working at another new albums but the title will perhaps stay the same. For example, I’d like to cooperate with a live orchestra or a drummer…Maybe that will be some jazz or symphonic sounding. More intelligent and musically ‘correct’. Today ‘Kasha iz topora’ is the peak of GA image which I created at the very beginning of our creative work. In future much will change.

- How would you characterize the music of Gultskra Artikler and Stud?

Music of Gultskra Artikler is a chaos, some village with dusty forgotten things. It’s like a mosaic, fanciful designs on an old trunk. You examine it, draw something and add new elements. They shimmer in the sunlight, you feel its rough edges and specks. Stud’s music has more definite structure, it has certain basis, pivot on which it twists with constant unchangeable speed. It’s simple and perfect at the same time, there is nothing that should be changed, added or taken off. This is the way I create compositions: when I feel, nothing is missing or should be removed, it means the track is ready.

- 'I Saw The Future' differs from the other releases of Stud... A surge of emotions?;)

Yes, 'I Saw The Future' was the echo of breakcore popularity which touched me a little bit too.

- As far as I know, Dmitry Garin also took part in Gultskra Artikler project. Tell about your teamwork.

I accepted Dmitry for GA project, he helped us much with concerts, contacted with labels and so on. He performed the organizing duties of our project. I was the author of creative concept and Dmitry didn’t influence this sphere of our activities. Nevertheless while live concerts it was more convenient and interesting to work together rather than alone. Besides the sounding was more diverse. Nowadays Garin is engaged in hyperboloid.ru label, and, apparently, that’s what he likes to do. So we keep working together, sometimes make some music projects together, but we haven’t released them yet, so they are only on our comps. Perhaps in future we’ll form some creative alliance so that each of us could have his own creativity niche. But that will be absolutely different project, maybe club music, more energetic and cheeky.

- Garin is one of abracadabra’s organizers, am I right?

Yeas, he’s the director, head of creative process. They are gathering one more abra now, thinking of the visit of AE level’s founders. Well, I'm not sure that they will come, they don’t like Russia very much:)

- What’s doing hyperboloid.ru nowadays?

It made small promo-discs, but that was long ago... Then was some pause, and at last today Garin is ready to release two albums - my album and one more Russian project 'Vihornov', recently he had some concerts in Moscow in several clubs. Very talented keyboard player. - What can you tell about the process of your live concerts? Which concert was the most interesting and memorable for you and why?

As for Gultskra Artikler live concerts: live concert in Norway was interesting both for listeners and me. I improvised with the help of Russian lyre (gusli) and microphone coming through laptop and various effects. There were also different keyboards, small ethnic musical instruments like horn, flute, mouthorgan, little bells and so on… All that went through a sequencer, and at once I built up collages.

Stud’s concerts are more prosaic - laptop, midi-keyboards, controller tightly connected with bit. Some kind of light dreamy idm. I’m not going to develop Stud’s style, let it be just like it was several years ago. The classics of IDM.;) Though I added to the new album some special effects with live percussion. But simple melodies and electronic synths are still left. In February I’ll have a concert in club ‘16 tonnes’ with new Stud material, in March I’m going to Sevastopol. All of you invited;) The most memorable concert was my first live performance at the first Abracadabra festival in Moscow (2004). I was shocked by the number of people. There were, perhaps, more than 1000 listeners. Full hall of sport-complex, it’s title was ‘Soviet wings’, if I’m not mistaking. They made something like a ring with ascending sittings, like in a circus. I had the image of a Russian countryman - earflapped fur hat, beard (didn’t shave specially for the concert) and white suit - dungarees. Garin worked on the scene together with me, there were also guys on percussion.

- When did you move to Moscow, what made you do it?

It happened accidentally, I came for Abracadabra in 2004 and so I’m still here:) I got acquainted with many interesting people, found a new job… So it was a symbolic festival both for me and for my project.

- If that’s not a secret, tell us about speech samples for GA’s music. They have the unreal effect.;)

They are of different origin, thanks to my friends I managed to gather such collection. These records were made by them in a burst of creativity, sometimes it’s just drunken stuff. Some records I made by myself, I use old films and cartoons for such purposes.

- I tried to visit www.atl3.com but it gave no results. Suppose, there was personal net-label? What has happened?

Our site died. That was a community consisting of 4-5 people, some kind of a label. There were musicians’ sites with their mp3s, photos and information about them. I had a site there, that was my friend’s server. Now the server doesn’t work, haven’t heard of this friend for long.:)

- What are you going to do in future?

Gonna release the new album Stud on CD and sell in it in Russia and in some European countries. Hope that will be enough at least for a bottle of beer as a compensation for long sleepless nights when I was creating music:)

I also plan 3 concerts in Moscow, Ukraine and Petersburg. Maybe one more new Abracadabra and new creative image.